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O Lord, our governor, Z141

Introduction

O Lord, our Governor is a particularly early verse anthem, written certainly before 1679. It may well be Purcell’s earliest surviving sacred work, possibly dating from as early as 1676 when he would have been only sixteen years old! No autograph survives, and the writing is at times unlike that in any other of Purcell’s anthems. The solo and verse writing is wonderfully individual and responsive to the text and the overall effect quite majestic: even the kindest critic would have to admit that Purcell’s youthful desire to maintain strict counterpoint (when a few years later he would have bent the rules a little) does lead him into some highly individual harmonic moments in the choruses!

The opening is glorious with a wistful five-bar solo, high in its register, for the bass violin, leading to an extended passage for solo bass extolling the majesty of the Lord in marvellously expansive style. The ‘very babes and sucklings’ are represented by three solo trebles, innocently stilling ‘the enemy and the avenger’ in charming three-part close harmony, and two basses consider the creation of matters celestial before the section is brought to a close by a short chorus. Again the solo bass muses on mankind’s good fortune before the two trebles and two basses, later joined by the third treble, joyfully celebrate man’s dominion of the world in typically Purcellian style. The chorus take on the role of the animals that inhabit the world, the sheep and oxen in thoughtful style, and ‘the fowls of the air and the fishes of the sea’ in joyful (if somewhat bizarre) counterpoint. The music of the opening returns, this time ingeniously multiplied to occupy two basses in exact imitation, all the more grand in their wonder of the Lord’s creation.

The Gloria is quite old-fashioned in its style – it was only a few years previously that Purcell would have been singing just this sort of music as a treble in the Chapel Royal – but blossoms beautifully at ‘World without end’ and closes with a serene and harmonically individual ‘Amen’.

'It is hard to speak too highly of this enterprise … much enjoyment to be had' (Gramophone)'the performances from The King’s Consort and its Choir, the Choir of New College and a starry line-up of soloists have such qualities of concentratio ...» More

O Lord, our Governor, how excellent is thy name in all the world; Thou that hast set thy glory above the heavens. Out of the mouths of very babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength because of thine enemies that thou might’st still the enemy and the avenger. For I will consider thy heavens, ev’n the work of thy fingers; the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained. Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him, or the Son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou mad’st him lower than the angels, to crown him with glory and worship. Thou mak’st him to have dominion of the works of thy hands, and hast put all things in subjection under his feet. All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of the field; the fowls of the air and the fishes of the sea, and whatsoever walketh through the paths of the sea. O Lord our Governor, how excellent is thy name in all the world! Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, World without end. Amen.